Page 71 of Sinner's Salvation

The Homeland Security agents, to a man, tried to become one with the walls.

“And now my man and this diplomat have just disappeared into thin air?”

No one answered him, but they all looked ashamed and embarrassed.

Baz’s phone went off. He looked at it and stepped away a few steps to take the call. He kept his voice down, but he looked awfully tense.

He ended the call and turned around.

“How is she?” Marek asked, without the snark in his voice.

Baz looked like he was two seconds from blowing up. “She’s on the operating table right now. The bullet was a through and through. She has a collapsed lung and it nicked her liver. They’ve given her several units of blood.” He paused and looked at the Homeland Security agents with a snarl on his face. “Through an IV,notbecause she’s drinking it.”

They had the grace to look even more embarrassed.

“But they think she’s going to make it,” Baz said

“Any woman who can put up with you, wouldn’t let a bullet stop her,” Marek said.

Baz rolled his eyes. “That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”

“I just don’t understand why this happened,” the lead FBI agent said. He looked at the Homeland Security agents. “Was Ledger under considerable stress?”

“Not that we’re aware of,” one of the agents answered. “But Ledger doesn’t have a law enforcement or military background. He’s a lawyer and he lobbied hard to be appointed to his current position. His, uh...brother is the Secretary of Homeland Security. His father is a US Senator.”

They kept talking about the circumstances around Ledger’s actions, but no one had any answers or even guesses as to what prompted him to act so precipitously. In the end, each group nominated one of their team members to remain in contact with the others, then they dispersed. Most using the elevator. A couple of the FBI agents used the stairs.

Marek shook Baz’s hand and went down in the elevator with his two soldiers.

“Are you going to contact your commanding officer?” Anna asked Evan.

“No,” he said, quickly enough that he didn’t have to think about his answer.

“Why not?”

“Because I think I need to stay...out of sight.”

“He seems concerned.”

“Of course he’s concerned. It won’t stop him from arresting me and charging me with treason, though. He’s a stickler for following orders and procedures. I pretty much stopped doing that the moment I saw your face.”

“What?” Anna turned to face him. “I didn’t...” She stared at him, horrified. “You threw your career away just to help me?”

His gaze was calm. Certain. Confidant. “Yup.”

“But in all the confusion no one knows what happened,” she said in a rush. “You could—”

He shook his head. “If the investigators find the remains of my explosive device at the epicenter of the fire, they’ll know it was me. Marek will know it was me.”

“But why?” she asked, confused as to why a man with such dedication would walk away from his calling. “Why did you do it?”

He cupped her face with one hand. “Because it wasyou. Because what Ledger was doing was wrong. Because if I had done nothing, and he started shopping hisproofaround, you’d be dead or worse.”

She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t finished.

“That baby FBI agent would have been stuck with you, to be used as leverage to get you to do what they want. Then your family would have been rounded up and treated to the same. And I know Baz. He would have lost his shit, and there would have been a bloodbath.”

She closed her mouth. He was right, that would have happened.

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